The 411 patients currently admitted to Malaga hospitals with an infection caused by the coronavirus is higher than the maximum peak that happened in the second wave of the pandemic on 17 November, when 409 were hospitalised in the province.

The speed of spread of this "aggressive and explosive" third wave has caused a significant increase in the pressure on hospitals.

Malaga province's hospitals have the most Covid-19 patients in Andalucía with 21.4 per cent of the total. In two weeks, the number of patients admitted with the coronavirus in Malaga has almost tripled and gone from 148 on 1 January to 411 this Friday.

The situation in intensive care units has also worsened in the first half of January. On 31 December there were 18 patients with coronavirus in the Malaga ICUs, now there are 38 - more than double.

Andalucía numbers up

Across Andalucía 6,664 new coronavirus infections have been recorded - the second highest figure during the entire pandemic and only surpassed by the 6,882 infections on Wednesday, according to official data.

The region has seen the incidence rate of Covid-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days rise to 463.9, a figure that is 58.8 points higher than that of 405.1 on Thursday and 260 points higher than the 203.5 rate from last Friday.

Malaga leads the contagions again and adds more than a thousand for the third consecutive day with 1,339, followed by Cádiz with 1,235 and Seville with 1,216. Below a thousand positives are Granada with 649, Almeria with 601, Jaén with 498 and Huelva with 496.

Granada province has registered the most deaths with 17, followed by Cadiz and Malaga with eight, Jaén with four, Cordoba with three, Seville with two and Almería with one.

More than 300 admissions to ICU

The number of patients admitted to hospitals with Covid-19 are up for the thirteenth consecutive day to 1,916, 125 more than the day before and 722 more than a week ago, of which 308 are in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 22 more than Thursday and 81 more than seven days ago.

Malaga continues to be the province with the most hospitalised with 411 and 38 of them in ICU, followed by Cadiz with 366 and 55 in ICU, Granada with 292 and 56 in ICU, Seville with 279 and 43 in ICU, Cordoba with 170 and 30 in ICU, Jaén with 163 and 26 in ICU, Almeria with 165 and 44 in ICU and Huelva with 70 and 16 in ICU.